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If you have any definitive, legal proof that Plame was a covert agent per the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 (50 U.S.C. 421 et seq.), please present it.
If you don't, none of the rest of this bullshit amounts to anything more than that which comes from a cow's ass.
In this case, repetition appears to be perpetuating the lie into myth.
Where do you get that she isn't? Link Please!If you have any definitive, legal proof that Plame was a covert agent per the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 (50 U.S.C. 421 et seq.), please present it.
If you don't, none of the rest of this bullshit amounts to anything more than that which comes from a cow's ass.
In this case, repetition appears to be perpetuating the lie into myth.
(4) The term “covert agent” means—
(A) a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency—
(i) whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and
(ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States; or
(B) a United States citizen whose intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information, and—
(i) who resides and acts outside the United States as an agent of, or informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency, or
(ii) who is at the time of the disclosure acting as an agent of, or informant to, the foreign counterintelligence or foreign counterterrorism components of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; or
(C) an individual, other than a United States citizen, whose past or present intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information and who is a present or former agent of, or a present or former informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency.
Ummmmm, Gunny, Plame was a covert agent. It was testified to by the CIA during the libby trial and was found as fact during that trial. It's pretty much res judicata and isn't really up for debate.
Do you think the CIA lied during the Libby trial?
Incorrect. Please show the specific citation from the Libby trial transcripts wherein either an official representative from the CIA claimed that Plame was "covert" as pertains to the IIPA, or the authenticated documents provided as evidence at the Libby trial which show the same thing. I'll make it easy for you, they didn't. If they had done so, there would be a legal finding of fact which would have ended this debate long ago. Instead, we have hearsay evidence provided by both prosecution and defense which voice opinions on whether Plame was covert or not, but no finding of fact was completed, so all we still have is speculation.
That's part of the rub - the CIA repeatedly has refused to make such a statement. Even the original request by the CIA to the DOJ was simply a request for investigation into what might have been dissemination of classified material, which is covered under a different statute that the IIPA. So apparently the CIA was unable or unwilling to call Plame a covert intelligence agent per the US Codes despite the fact that they used the term in-house to cover a wide range of operatives. It is this problem in translation which has many (like the rabid posters on the prior pages) claiming that Plame was incontrovertibly "covert" per the law when in fact not even the CIA was willing to make that jump. Perhaps our learned (and rabid) posters are exercising their clairvoyance, in which case I really need to go grab some tinfoil for a new hat.
Another point worth mentioning is that a few of the slower amongst us have concluded that since Fitzgerald made a statement in his sentence recommendation that Plame was clearly covert per the statute, that some kind of legal fact had been established. Simply put, it had not. If it had, the debate would most certainly be over. But in fact, there was never a finding of fact regarding Plame's status and the governing US Codes. Never.
Let me also point out that Fitzgerald is proceeding as he should. After using legal facts to convict Libby of perjury and making false statements, and the obstruction of justice which they contributed to, Fitzgerald proceeded to make his sentencing recommendation. The evidentiary requirements for the sentencing recommendation are much less strict than they are during the trial. Sentence recommendations often incorporate emotional pleas by the prosecution, the defense and even the public (amicus curiae briefs). Each party is arguing their position to the sentencing judge in hopes that the convicted person's sentence will reflect their opinion. In the case of the prosecution, the Federal Sentencing Guidelines have to be followed to ensure a level of uniformity under the law. As Fitzgerald points out repeatedly in his recommendation, Libby was only convicted of perjury, making false statements, and obstruction of justice, and that the sentence calculation of two-and-a-half to three years is the proper sentence. His inclusion of other, non-proven statements is meant to mitigate or counter-balance any defense argument for leniency, but they are not necessarily legal facts. The recommendation was not meant to be a referendum on the war, a point Fitzgerald makes in the document itself.
BTW, I gotta say thanks to all the nutjobs here who have made more out of the sentencing recommendation than is really there. Y'all have made me chuckle more than a few times over the past couple of days. I didn't even have to visit the DailyKOS because y'all kept me in stitches! THANKS!
If you have any definitive, legal proof that Plame was a covert agent per the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 (50 U.S.C. 421 et seq.), please present it.
If you don't, none of the rest of this bullshit amounts to anything more than that which comes from a cow's ass.
In this case, repetition appears to be perpetuating the lie into myth.
Ummmmm, Gunny, Plame was a covert agent. It was testified to by the CIA during the libby trial and was found as fact during that trial. It's pretty much res judicata and isn't really up for debate.
Do you think the CIA lied during the Libby trial?
our own government says she was.
why do you people do this?
Where do you get that she isn't? Link Please!
Also, read the Act that you just quoted, you will see clearly that she meets the description for an undercover covert officer for the Cia.
Read it, please, then tell me again, that you still believe she was not an undercover officer covered by this law....
Fitzgerald could not proceed with the investigation on "outing" an agent, without having the CONFIRMATION that the agent outed was truely considered, undercover under this statute.
Here is the law, the next few pages, Sections 422,423,424,425 etc are all part of this law. It explains the duties of the prosecutor. It explains a covert operative is not held liable for outing oneself, it explains the sentencing for such crimes and it gives definitions of pertaining terms.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/50/usc_sec_50_00000421----000-.html
And here is the definition of a covert operative, covert agent, in which through the investigation in to Plame's outing, Fitzgerald FIRST had to determine if she met this definition:
Plame met this legal description, under the Law...according to the CIA, According to the two Directors of the CIA, Tenet and Hadley, who confirmed this with Fitzgerald, who then was able to proceed with the investigation in to the leak of a Cia confirmed, undercover agent.
Fitgerald was investigating the outing of an undercover agent, he was not charged with investigating whether valerie plame was "covert" or not, that he knew in the beginning, or his investigation in to a "outing" would not have proceeded.
The only reason the 'debate' continues is that the Bush administration's drones are unwilling to accept one simple fact...President Bush and his administration see themselves as above the law, if not the law unto themselves. They accept the constraints placed upon the Executive branch by the Constitution only grudgingly, and actively engage in actions to sidestep, if not actively undermine, that document.
The debate continues because there has been absolutely no justification given to treat Plame in a manner incinsistent with the law that defines and regulates being under cover.
Rather, it's quite obvious her "undercover" has been tailored outside the confines of the law to suit a political witch hunting agenda.
I'm afraid it IS up for debate since it appears that Plame being "under cover" doesn't stand up to scrutiny. That is unless you are aware of a special set of rules that apply only to HER cover, but not every other undercover CIA operative.
Is the CIA question rhetorical? Were their lips moving?
Let me present you with a link to the unclassified summary of Ms. Plame's employment history with the CIA. Note, that it is unclassified so any classified activity is omitted. The document was attached to Patrick Fitzgerald's sentencing memorandum and being a legal document, it constitutes the legal proof you asked for. The document is in PDF format.
<center><a href=http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/files/fitz_filing_declaring_val_was_undercover.pdf>Unclassified summarry of Valerie Wilson's CIA employment and cover history</a></center>
Ah well, since you have an unclassified summary of Plame's "covert" employment... wait a second, who prepared that document? Was it the CIA General Counsel? Or perhaps Fitzgerald or his staff? What is the authenticity of the document? What is its authorship? And even if the document's pedigree can be determined, how is it relevant to the statutes involved? Does it provide definitive proof that the government and Plame performed the requisite "affirmative measures to conceal...?" Well no, it doesn't now does it? It is a SUMMARY document with unproven pedigree which makes it practically useless.
Again I ask, where is the evidentiary ruling which states that Plame was a covert intelligence agent covered in the Intelligence Identity Protection Act or other related statutes? Until such a ruling has been made, there is no fact, only opinion.
It seems, dear Bully, that you haven't a clue as to what constitutes legal proof, let alone what happens in the sentencing phase of a criminal proceeding. After all, the original document you reference in the thread OP was the sentencing recommendation for Libby from Fitzgerald. And Fitzgerald did a nice dance around the FACT that Plame's status has NOT been determined as a matter of law. And last time I checked, we are a nation of laws, or at least we are supposed to be. Of course some people around here seem more intent on lynching a man for a crime he was not charged with, let alone convicted of. Punish Libby for his perjury, making false statements and obstruction, but that's it. And if you had bothered to read Fitzgerald's recommendation in full and with an objective mind, you'd have seen that is what Fitzgerald was calling for as well.
I gave you the law as reference. Are you telling me you cannot look it up yourself?
Your facts would be incorrect, and I find it rather hillarious the same people ready to lynch the CIA for providing faulty information on Iraq are SO willing to readily accept its word at face value when it suits you to.
A bunch of words....
with no meaning or common sense invoved.
you obviously have no clue as to what you are talking about and back nothing up with links. All that you spout is just conjecture and really a song and a dance, what Bully Provide you and gunny with, is LEGAL PROOF, Plame was a covert, undercover officer for the CIA in one of our most important depts.
I am presuming ye "protest too much" regarding this because our Vice President did one of the most DEPLORABLE things that someone serving us could do, he outed an agent for just political gain, and this by Bush 1, would label him as a TRAITOR to his country, and YOU just can't accept this...being the LOYAL partyman that you are?
I dunno?
But whatever it is your cover and diatribe is blown, BULLY SCORED and showed you the proof that was asked of him, YOU on the other hand have spouted nothing but hot air,
no proof, but great talkin' and fun to read the way you SPIN things.
Care
You're a joke. And I got a chuckle out of the lame ad hominems you tried to hurl in my direction. That's SOP for someone like you though, eh C4A? When faced with logic and reason (and a request for legal proof to back up your wild, emotional claims), you try to dismiss any other opinion out of hand.
The heart of the matter is still this: was Valerie Plame a covert intelligence agent per the 1982 Intelligence Identity Protection Act? So far you and the rest of the rabid ravers of the loony left have produced nothing but opinions that she was "covert." How dense are you not to see that opinions are NOT legal fact until tested in court and a judge hands down a decision? And has such a decision been handed down? No.
And me a "loyal partyman?" LOL! Thanks for the laugh! There's a ton of stuff (and the pile grows daily) of things GWB has done of which I disapprove. But that doesn't mean I'm going to stand by an watch a man get lynched. I can see how you're a sheeple though Care4All, following the herd mentality and herd emotion.
Statements from not one, but TWO DCIA's, to the fact that Valerie Plame was a covert operative until she was outed...An unclassified summary of her employment history with the CIA, attached as an exhibit to Patrick Fitzgerald's sentencing memorandum...All are unsubstantiated opinion? And you accuse anyone who thinks otherwise of being delusional?
Your protestations notwithstanding your support of Libby in this matter falls right in line with the backers of the Bush administration and its lawlessness.
